Can we have an honest, good faith conversation about fat acceptance and body positivity?

[Anonymous]

Body acceptance is great. People come in all shapes and sizes. Enabling obesity isn't great. Morality aside, no one should be that shape or size.

There are those who are obese for reasons such as sexual abuse or other childhood trauma. There are those who are overweight or obese due to genetic or metabolic conditions.

However, 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. This is crazy town.

As a society, we need to revamp what we see as food and how we eat. I'm a firm believer of loving food and celebrating food. It's part of the human experience. But perhaps we could refocus on what we see as food. If you go into the grocery store, how much of that is really food? I mean, real food.

My kids are served a big pretzel and nacho cheese once a week at school for lunch. They are also served a yoghurt parfait with about 150 grams of sugar, pizza, and chicken nuggets. We're teaching people how to eat like complete crap and then are surprised they get fat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, body positively is just about respecting others’ bodies. So many fat people cannot just exist without people shaming them for their bodies, as though they have a right to pass judgment or comment on them.

Body positively certainly has gotten muddled in media.

Where are these fat people being shamed? I am asking an honest question. I am fat, and my mother is obese. We have never been shamed.

Everywhere! I was on the boardwalk this summer fully dressed (not a swim suit) carrying my 3 year old daughter and one of the game guys with a mic started singing "She's a Brick House" in the mic. It was clearly directed at me. Mostly I was pissed because I was there with my preschool daughter.

That is just one of many nearly daily examples.

I'm a size 16/18...so not TLC show size.

Wow! I apologize for my ignorance. I am seriously not aware that people do this. My mother is a ssize 18. We have never noticed any of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's title question, no, we really can't have a productive conversation -- for reasons this thread has largely shown.

Personally I think it's important to separate "body positivity" from "obesity." I admit some availabilty bias because this is just my own anecdata, but I came from an obese family. Meat and potatoes for every meal. A second helping with velveeta on top. Dessert with every meal. Not much exercise. Oh sure, because the boys in the family played football, we'd tell ourselves that although we were big at least we were "active," but we weren't, not really. And anyways, my brothers and cousins stopped football after high school but kept up the eating. And everyone in the family tells themselves it's "genetic" and there's nothing we could do about it. "We've always been big-boned."

As an adult, though, I basically ended up testing the genetic hypothesis by committing to getting to a size and lifestyle that I viewed as healthy. Yes to vegetables, no to sweets. Consistent exercise, almost every day. And it worked. It turns out there was something we could do about it. Sure, there are genetic things that differentiate me from a supermodel. I have wide hips, chicken wing shoulders, and am self conscious about a dozen other things that I can't change. And I'm grateful for body positivity for helping me accept this about myself.

But true obesity is rarely like that. With extremely few exceptions--like a rare medical condition actually diagnosed by a doctor, not just family lore--you simply do not find morbidly obese people, my relatives included, who are eating clean, tracking calories, regularly exercising, and only having sweets and booze in extreme moderation.

I agree with this.

I cringe when people talk about how they are naturally thin. Healthy, naturally thin people do not exist. These people eat much less and/or move much more. If we cannot even agree on this, then we are stuck.

Obesity can be treaed by eating less and/or moving more. Our soceity has to find ways to make healthy eating and movement more attractive and accessible. Nobody wants to be obese.

Except that as per these scientific references (and there are others), the heritability of obesity is between 40 and 70%. Now, that's a wide range, but even if it's "just" 40%, that means that genes contribute close to half of the variability in determining obesity. That could very well mean things like predisposition to satiety and activity levels, but they're still genetically-mediated.

So, if *you* and others who insist it's all environment can't acknowledge the role of genetics, then we are, indeed, stuck.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104766/

Thin people eat much less than obese people, and some obese people have some genetic predispositions that contribute to their obesity. I don't see the contradiction here at all.

The contradiction is the insistence that "naturally" thin people don't exist and frankly, yes, they do. There are people for whom it is MUCH easier to "eat less and move more" than others, and we need to acknowledge that. It's a privilege, and maybe people don't want to accept that, but it's there, all the same. That has to be the foundation for an honest conversation about obesity. It doesn't mean people can't do things to improve their health at any size, but it does mean some people have a real advantage in achieving the goal of not being obese.

I say this as someone who builds muscle easily for a woman, and I know what an advantage that gives me, i.e., this issue is bigger than obesity, it's about acknowledging the advantages that genetics confer on some people for some traits.

This is accurate. I work out daily (multiple times a day on weekends), eat chia seeds, berries, salad with no cheese or dressing, don't drink calories (or anything sweetened), etc have one small dessert a day and have a bmi of 36. My husband eats all day long. Fried chicken, fast food, processed meats, soda, chips, juice, mayo on everything, ice cream whatever. In large portions. Never works out. Has a bmi of 23.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Body acceptance is great. People come in all shapes and sizes. Enabling obesity isn't great. Morality aside, no one should be that shape or size.

There are those who are obese for reasons such as sexual abuse or other childhood trauma. There are those who are overweight or obese due to genetic or metabolic conditions.

However, 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. This is crazy town.

As a society, we need to revamp what we see as food and how we eat. I'm a firm believer of loving food and celebrating food. It's part of the human experience. But perhaps we could refocus on what we see as food. If you go into the grocery store, how much of that is really food? I mean, real food.

My kids are served a big pretzel and nacho cheese once a week at school for lunch. They are also served a yoghurt parfait with about 150 grams of sugar, pizza, and chicken nuggets. We're teaching people how to eat like complete crap and then are surprised they get fat.

I think you are oversimplifying the problem but you are spot on when you say that a societal problem requires societal solutions. Our food options are bad. We need to make healthy eating and exercise easier to access, especially for kids.

One huge issue is that shaming and dieting both lead to more unhealthy habits. As a society that is another downward spiral we need to curb.

[Anonymous]

Body positivity, as the movement was initially conceived, has nothing to do with health. Health is a separate issue. It is just about not judging people for the kind of body they have. There are people with fat bodies and thin bodies and everything in between and they are humans and deserve our respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's title question, no, we really can't have a productive conversation -- for reasons this thread has largely shown.

Personally I think it's important to separate "body positivity" from "obesity." I admit some availabilty bias because this is just my own anecdata, but I came from an obese family. Meat and potatoes for every meal. A second helping with velveeta on top. Dessert with every meal. Not much exercise. Oh sure, because the boys in the family played football, we'd tell ourselves that although we were big at least we were "active," but we weren't, not really. And anyways, my brothers and cousins stopped football after high school but kept up the eating. And everyone in the family tells themselves it's "genetic" and there's nothing we could do about it. "We've always been big-boned."

As an adult, though, I basically ended up testing the genetic hypothesis by committing to getting to a size and lifestyle that I viewed as healthy. Yes to vegetables, no to sweets. Consistent exercise, almost every day. And it worked. It turns out there was something we could do about it. Sure, there are genetic things that differentiate me from a supermodel. I have wide hips, chicken wing shoulders, and am self conscious about a dozen other things that I can't change. And I'm grateful for body positivity for helping me accept this about myself.

But true obesity is rarely like that. With extremely few exceptions--like a rare medical condition actually diagnosed by a doctor, not just family lore--you simply do not find morbidly obese people, my relatives included, who are eating clean, tracking calories, regularly exercising, and only having sweets and booze in extreme moderation.

I agree with this.

I cringe when people talk about how they are naturally thin. Healthy, naturally thin people do not exist. These people eat much less and/or move much more. If we cannot even agree on this, then we are stuck.

Obesity can be treaed by eating less and/or moving more. Our soceity has to find ways to make healthy eating and movement more attractive and accessible. Nobody wants to be obese.

Except that as per these scientific references (and there are others), the heritability of obesity is between 40 and 70%. Now, that's a wide range, but even if it's "just" 40%, that means that genes contribute close to half of the variability in determining obesity. That could very well mean things like predisposition to satiety and activity levels, but they're still genetically-mediated.

So, if *you* and others who insist it's all environment can't acknowledge the role of genetics, then we are, indeed, stuck.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104766/

Thin people eat much less than obese people, and some obese people have some genetic predispositions that contribute to their obesity. I don't see the contradiction here at all.

The contradiction is the insistence that "naturally" thin people don't exist and frankly, yes, they do. There are people for whom it is MUCH easier to "eat less and move more" than others, and we need to acknowledge that. It's a privilege, and maybe people don't want to accept that, but it's there, all the same. That has to be the foundation for an honest conversation about obesity. It doesn't mean people can't do things to improve their health at any size, but it does mean some people have a real advantage in achieving the goal of not being obese.

I say this as someone who builds muscle easily for a woman, and I know what an advantage that gives me, i.e., this issue is bigger than obesity, it's about acknowledging the advantages that genetics confer on some people for some traits.

This is accurate. I work out daily (multiple times a day on weekends), eat chia seeds, berries, salad with no cheese or dressing, don't drink calories (or anything sweetened), etc have one small dessert a day and have a bmi of 36. My husband eats all day long. Fried chicken, fast food, processed meats, soda, chips, juice, mayo on everything, ice cream whatever. In large portions. Never works out. Has a bmi of 23.

What is accurate?
It is pretty well known that men and women have different bodies/metabolism/muscle composition etc. There is no contradiction in your example.

[Anonymous]

Weight is just a very poor indicator of overall health. See PP with BMI of 36 but works out a ton and eats heathy foods: She didn't say, but I'd imagine that her cholesterol and blood pressure are in a healthy range and she does not have other adverse health problems.

Compare that to my FIL who is naturally slim and from outward appearances anyone would say is "healthy" but eats no vegetables, never works out, and has fast food for lunch most days. He just had quadruple bypass heart surgery and nearly died from a heart attack. He was NOT healthy.

Our public policy focus needs to be on HEALTH and not on WEIGHT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Body positivity, as the movement was initially conceived, has nothing to do with health. Health is a separate issue. It is just about not judging people for the kind of body they have. There are people with fat bodies and thin bodies and everything in between and they are humans and deserve our respect.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's title question, no, we really can't have a productive conversation -- for reasons this thread has largely shown.

Personally I think it's important to separate "body positivity" from "obesity." I admit some availabilty bias because this is just my own anecdata, but I came from an obese family. Meat and potatoes for every meal. A second helping with velveeta on top. Dessert with every meal. Not much exercise. Oh sure, because the boys in the family played football, we'd tell ourselves that although we were big at least we were "active," but we weren't, not really. And anyways, my brothers and cousins stopped football after high school but kept up the eating. And everyone in the family tells themselves it's "genetic" and there's nothing we could do about it. "We've always been big-boned."

As an adult, though, I basically ended up testing the genetic hypothesis by committing to getting to a size and lifestyle that I viewed as healthy. Yes to vegetables, no to sweets. Consistent exercise, almost every day. And it worked. It turns out there was something we could do about it. Sure, there are genetic things that differentiate me from a supermodel. I have wide hips, chicken wing shoulders, and am self conscious about a dozen other things that I can't change. And I'm grateful for body positivity for helping me accept this about myself.

But true obesity is rarely like that. With extremely few exceptions--like a rare medical condition actually diagnosed by a doctor, not just family lore--you simply do not find morbidly obese people, my relatives included, who are eating clean, tracking calories, regularly exercising, and only having sweets and booze in extreme moderation.

I agree with this.

I cringe when people talk about how they are naturally thin. Healthy, naturally thin people do not exist. These people eat much less and/or move much more. If we cannot even agree on this, then we are stuck.

Obesity can be treaed by eating less and/or moving more. Our soceity has to find ways to make healthy eating and movement more attractive and accessible. Nobody wants to be obese.

Except that as per these scientific references (and there are others), the heritability of obesity is between 40 and 70%. Now, that's a wide range, but even if it's "just" 40%, that means that genes contribute close to half of the variability in determining obesity. That could very well mean things like predisposition to satiety and activity levels, but they're still genetically-mediated.

So, if *you* and others who insist it's all environment can't acknowledge the role of genetics, then we are, indeed, stuck.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104766/

Thin people eat much less than obese people, and some obese people have some genetic predispositions that contribute to their obesity. I don't see the contradiction here at all.

The contradiction is the insistence that "naturally" thin people don't exist and frankly, yes, they do. There are people for whom it is MUCH easier to "eat less and move more" than others, and we need to acknowledge that. It's a privilege, and maybe people don't want to accept that, but it's there, all the same. That has to be the foundation for an honest conversation about obesity. It doesn't mean people can't do things to improve their health at any size, but it does mean some people have a real advantage in achieving the goal of not being obese.

I say this as someone who builds muscle easily for a woman, and I know what an advantage that gives me, i.e., this issue is bigger than obesity, it's about acknowledging the advantages that genetics confer on some people for some traits.

This is accurate. I work out daily (multiple times a day on weekends), eat chia seeds, berries, salad with no cheese or dressing, don't drink calories (or anything sweetened), etc have one small dessert a day and have a bmi of 36. My husband eats all day long. Fried chicken, fast food, processed meats, soda, chips, juice, mayo on everything, ice cream whatever. In large portions. Never works out. Has a bmi of 23.

What is accurate?
It is pretty well known that men and women have different bodies/metabolism/muscle composition etc. There is no contradiction in your example.

Ok...I also have friends of similar age and height who are much thinner than I am who don't work out and eat junk. People (especially doctors) assume that I eat like crap and don't work out because of my bmi...but are always shocked when my labs come back in the optimal or whatever the top category is. There is clearly more to bmi and obesity than just eat less and move more. At least for some people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Body acceptance is great. People come in all shapes and sizes. Enabling obesity isn't great. Morality aside, no one should be that shape or size.

There are those who are obese for reasons such as sexual abuse or other childhood trauma. There are those who are overweight or obese due to genetic or metabolic conditions.

However, 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. This is crazy town.

As a society, we need to revamp what we see as food and how we eat. I'm a firm believer of loving food and celebrating food. It's part of the human experience. But perhaps we could refocus on what we see as food. If you go into the grocery store, how much of that is really food? I mean, real food.

My kids are served a big pretzel and nacho cheese once a week at school for lunch. They are also served a yoghurt parfait with about 150 grams of sugar, pizza, and chicken nuggets. We're teaching people how to eat like complete crap and then are surprised they get fat.

I think you are oversimplifying the problem but you are spot on when you say that a societal problem requires societal solutions. Our food options are bad. We need to make healthy eating and exercise easier to access, especially for kids.

One huge issue is that shaming and dieting both lead to more unhealthy habits. As a society that is another downward spiral we need to curb.

I was recently in the hospital and the options provided by the dietary service included cheeseburgers, tater tots, ice cream, mayonnaise, pancakes with artificial syrup, grilled cheese, etc. I couldn't believe how unhealthy the food was. Only the sugary kind of yogurt available. I tried to order things like salads and was given minuscule amounts of the fresh vegetables and fruit. Some of the fruit was clearly past its sell by date as well. I'm assuming that this is because hospitals are for-profit entities and the food service has been given to the lowest bidder. I was thinking about writing to Ralph Northam about it. I compare it to the kind of food that you are given in the hospital in Europe, etc. and it's appalling! Also, the emergency room was overcrowded and they were seeing patients in the hallways and you could overhear everything and EVERYONE except me was on diabetes medication. None of those people should be eating that crap. It truly is a structural problem, not an individual one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's title question, no, we really can't have a productive conversation -- for reasons this thread has largely shown.

Personally I think it's important to separate "body positivity" from "obesity." I admit some availabilty bias because this is just my own anecdata, but I came from an obese family. Meat and potatoes for every meal. A second helping with velveeta on top. Dessert with every meal. Not much exercise. Oh sure, because the boys in the family played football, we'd tell ourselves that although we were big at least we were "active," but we weren't, not really. And anyways, my brothers and cousins stopped football after high school but kept up the eating. And everyone in the family tells themselves it's "genetic" and there's nothing we could do about it. "We've always been big-boned."

As an adult, though, I basically ended up testing the genetic hypothesis by committing to getting to a size and lifestyle that I viewed as healthy. Yes to vegetables, no to sweets. Consistent exercise, almost every day. And it worked. It turns out there was something we could do about it. Sure, there are genetic things that differentiate me from a supermodel. I have wide hips, chicken wing shoulders, and am self conscious about a dozen other things that I can't change. And I'm grateful for body positivity for helping me accept this about myself.

But true obesity is rarely like that. With extremely few exceptions--like a rare medical condition actually diagnosed by a doctor, not just family lore--you simply do not find morbidly obese people, my relatives included, who are eating clean, tracking calories, regularly exercising, and only having sweets and booze in extreme moderation.

I agree with this.

I cringe when people talk about how they are naturally thin. Healthy, naturally thin people do not exist. These people eat much less and/or move much more. If we cannot even agree on this, then we are stuck.

Obesity can be treaed by eating less and/or moving more. Our soceity has to find ways to make healthy eating and movement more attractive and accessible. Nobody wants to be obese.

Except that as per these scientific references (and there are others), the heritability of obesity is between 40 and 70%. Now, that's a wide range, but even if it's "just" 40%, that means that genes contribute close to half of the variability in determining obesity. That could very well mean things like predisposition to satiety and activity levels, but they're still genetically-mediated.

So, if *you* and others who insist it's all environment can't acknowledge the role of genetics, then we are, indeed, stuck.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104766/

Thin people eat much less than obese people, and some obese people have some genetic predispositions that contribute to their obesity. I don't see the contradiction here at all.

The contradiction is the insistence that "naturally" thin people don't exist and frankly, yes, they do. There are people for whom it is MUCH easier to "eat less and move more" than others, and we need to acknowledge that. It's a privilege, and maybe people don't want to accept that, but it's there, all the same. That has to be the foundation for an honest conversation about obesity. It doesn't mean people can't do things to improve their health at any size, but it does mean some people have a real advantage in achieving the goal of not being obese.

I say this as someone who builds muscle easily for a woman, and I know what an advantage that gives me, i.e., this issue is bigger than obesity, it's about acknowledging the advantages that genetics confer on some people for some traits.

This is accurate. I work out daily (multiple times a day on weekends), eat chia seeds, berries, salad with no cheese or dressing, don't drink calories (or anything sweetened), etc have one small dessert a day and have a bmi of 36. My husband eats all day long. Fried chicken, fast food, processed meats, soda, chips, juice, mayo on everything, ice cream whatever. In large portions. Never works out. Has a bmi of 23.

What’s the point of saying that you eat chia seeds, berries, etc? Is that all you eat? You mentioned your husband’s portions sizes but not your own. If you have a bmi of 36, you are clearly eating more calories than you need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weight is just a very poor indicator of overall health. See PP with BMI of 36 but works out a ton and eats heathy foods: She didn't say, but I'd imagine that her cholesterol and blood pressure are in a healthy range and she does not have other adverse health problems.

Compare that to my FIL who is naturally slim and from outward appearances anyone would say is "healthy" but eats no vegetables, never works out, and has fast food for lunch most days. He just had quadruple bypass heart surgery and nearly died from a heart attack. He was NOT healthy.

Our public policy focus needs to be on HEALTH and not on WEIGHT.

+1
And confirming... just had my blood work done. I'm in my 40s and workout medication, Evelyn was in the optimal (best) range. Hdl, ldl, triglycerides, a1c etc. Less than 1% chance of a cardiovascular even in the next 10 years when I put it in an online calculator. Doctor was virally surprised as he read my results and stammered to find justifications to encourage me to lose weight based on the labs.

I would love to be smaller. My life would be easier. But after being on diets since I was 8, I've just gotten to the point of leading a healthy lifestyle to the best of my ability with no particular goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weight is just a very poor indicator of overall health. See PP with BMI of 36 but works out a ton and eats heathy foods: She didn't say, but I'd imagine that her cholesterol and blood pressure are in a healthy range and she does not have other adverse health problems.

Compare that to my FIL who is naturally slim and from outward appearances anyone would say is "healthy" but eats no vegetables, never works out, and has fast food for lunch most days. He just had quadruple bypass heart surgery and nearly died from a heart attack. He was NOT healthy.

Our public policy focus needs to be on HEALTH and not on WEIGHT.

+1
And confirming... just had my blood work done. I'm in my 40s and workout medication, Evelyn was in the optimal (best) range. Hdl, ldl, triglycerides, a1c etc. Less than 1% chance of a cardiovascular even in the next 10 years when I put it in an online calculator. Doctor was virally surprised as he read my results and stammered to find justifications to encourage me to lose weight based on the labs.

I would love to be smaller. My life would be easier. But after being on diets since I was 8, I've just gotten to the point of leading a healthy lifestyle to the best of my ability with no particular goal.

*without meds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's title question, no, we really can't have a productive conversation -- for reasons this thread has largely shown.

Personally I think it's important to separate "body positivity" from "obesity." I admit some availabilty bias because this is just my own anecdata, but I came from an obese family. Meat and potatoes for every meal. A second helping with velveeta on top. Dessert with every meal. Not much exercise. Oh sure, because the boys in the family played football, we'd tell ourselves that although we were big at least we were "active," but we weren't, not really. And anyways, my brothers and cousins stopped football after high school but kept up the eating. And everyone in the family tells themselves it's "genetic" and there's nothing we could do about it. "We've always been big-boned."

As an adult, though, I basically ended up testing the genetic hypothesis by committing to getting to a size and lifestyle that I viewed as healthy. Yes to vegetables, no to sweets. Consistent exercise, almost every day. And it worked. It turns out there was something we could do about it. Sure, there are genetic things that differentiate me from a supermodel. I have wide hips, chicken wing shoulders, and am self conscious about a dozen other things that I can't change. And I'm grateful for body positivity for helping me accept this about myself.

But true obesity is rarely like that. With extremely few exceptions--like a rare medical condition actually diagnosed by a doctor, not just family lore--you simply do not find morbidly obese people, my relatives included, who are eating clean, tracking calories, regularly exercising, and only having sweets and booze in extreme moderation.

I agree with this.

I cringe when people talk about how they are naturally thin. Healthy, naturally thin people do not exist. These people eat much less and/or move much more. If we cannot even agree on this, then we are stuck.

Obesity can be treaed by eating less and/or moving more. Our soceity has to find ways to make healthy eating and movement more attractive and accessible. Nobody wants to be obese.

Except that as per these scientific references (and there are others), the heritability of obesity is between 40 and 70%. Now, that's a wide range, but even if it's "just" 40%, that means that genes contribute close to half of the variability in determining obesity. That could very well mean things like predisposition to satiety and activity levels, but they're still genetically-mediated.

So, if *you* and others who insist it's all environment can't acknowledge the role of genetics, then we are, indeed, stuck.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104766/

Thin people eat much less than obese people, and some obese people have some genetic predispositions that contribute to their obesity. I don't see the contradiction here at all.

But do we eat less because we are less hungry? Because our parents had access to healthy foods and taught us healthy eating? Do we gain less weight because we have faster metabolisms? I got to 37 without ever having to put in effort into losing weight, BMI normal during my entire adult life. Doesn't mean I was healthy - I've never eaten enough veggies, honestly. I never restricted how much junk food I ate. Finally now at 37, pandemic hit, I weaned my daughter and I've finally gained more weight than I'd like and putting effort into losing it. But it's not a ton, so it feels very manageable to lose it. Very different from someone who has started adulthood off overweight/obese or has a medical issues or trauma that contributes to their weight. You don't know what factors have led someone to be overweight, and it's none of your business.

[Anonymous]

Diet can change your genes.